Setting screen resolution in WinPE 4.0

By Johan Arwidmark / January 24, 2012

In the previous WinPE version 2.x/3.x you could provide the below settings in the Unattend.xml file to set the screen resolution:

<Display>
	<ColorDepth>16</ColorDepth>
	<HorizontalResolution>1024</HorizontalResolution>
	<RefreshRate>60</RefreshRate>
	<VerticalResolution>768</VerticalResolution>
</Display>

The Problem

But if you try to do that in WinPE 4.0 it fails, and you will see the following entry in the wpeinit.log file:

2012-01-24 14:01:11.619, Info      WPEINIT is processing the unattend file [X:\unattend.xml]
2012-01-24 14:01:11.697, Info      ==== Initializing Display Settings ====
2012-01-24 14:01:11.712, Info      Setting display resolution 1024x768x16@60: 0xfffffffe
2012-01-24 14:01:11.728, Warning   Setting the display resolution failed; this error is being ignored
2012-01-24 14:01:11.728, Info      STATUS: SUCCESS (0x00000001)

The Solution

Turned out that WinPE 4.0 (developer preview of Windows 8) didn't like 16-bit color depth, so when changing to 32-bit it works perfect

<Display>
	<ColorDepth>32</ColorDepth>
	<HorizontalResolution>1024</HorizontalResolution>
	<RefreshRate>60</RefreshRate>
	<VerticalResolution>768</VerticalResolution>
</Display>

Complete sample:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State">
            <Display>
                <ColorDepth>32</ColorDepth>
                <HorizontalResolution>1024</HorizontalResolution>
                <RefreshRate>60</RefreshRate>
                <VerticalResolution>768</VerticalResolution>
            </Display>
        </component>
    </settings>
</unattend>

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9 years ago

WinPE 5.0 does support the same setting, but not on EUFI-based machines. You are better of continuing with your current workaround (or ship a magnifying glass with each tablet 🙂 ).

/ Johan

kantzy

Changing the unattend.xml is not working in WinPE 5.0 as well. i am trying to deploy Windows 8.1 on a Lenovo Thinkpad 10 tablet in UEFI mode. The text looks too small and the drop down values are extremely small that they are almost unreadable. I am guessing the resolution might be around 1920 X 1080. I am currently managing by modifying the window.reiseTo and also using the style.zoom in the wizard.hta. Is there a better fix for this as we would need to start deploying Surface Pro in the enterprise soon and i am not sure how these HTA… Read more »

UEFI doesn't read the screen resolution (at least not in WinPE 4.0). If it uses the UEFI GOP video support, 1024×768 is the minimum though, see: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh997769.aspx.

aiva114

Hi I recently build a wds server with MDT 2013 and Im experiencing this very same problem on our UEFI machines. The WinPe part just doesn't want to set correct resolution. Is there a know fix for this? As I cant find anything on Internet.

10 years ago

There seems to be an issue with setting the screen resolution via WinPE 4.0 when booted into UEFI mode. I have pinged a few folks that might know more, but for know I would recommend to configure your HTA to work with the default reslution.

Tripredacus

See my longish post here for my best theory:
social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itproinstall/thread/eb9c59df-7f93-487e-ae59-c5954da5866f/

The PE image is booted in UEFI mode. I found another person on MS Social that also has this issue in UEFI mode in changing the resolution.

I tested your unattend.xml file (that you posted in MSFN) and it worked fine in my WinPE 4.0 x64 image.

Did you try in a virtual machine, or on a physical machine?

I certainly did. I made this topic shortly after posting here.
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/162510-unable-to-set-resolution-in-winpe4/

I have tested in WinPE 4.0 x64 and it works fine. Did you specify the amd64 architecture in the file?

This does not work in WinPE 4 x64 RTM. The wpeinit.log returns:

Info Setting display resolution 1024x768x32@60: 0xfffffffe
Warning Setting the display resolution failed; this error is being ignored

This was done using the -unattend switch with wpeinit.exe.

11 years ago

Email me the file and I will take a look, my alias is my last name, and I'm using gmail

Kevin King

Sorry, can't seem to get XML posted…

Thanks for the quick reply. Turns out I was specifying x86 instead of amd64 in the xml file, and now it works. For reference, following is the XML (which I attached in the last entry but got eaten).

##
##
##
##
##
## 32
## 1280
## 60
## 1024
##
##
##
##

(This is a great website – very much needed.)

The settings need to be in the WindowsPE pass of the unattend.xml

I'm using the answer file referenced above but with the resolution set to 1280×1024. I injected the graphics driver in my image, and I know the display adapter supports this resolution in Windows 7, but I can't seem to get WinPE to change the resolution from 1024×768. I'm invoking Autounattend as an option to Wpeinit. Wpeinit.log says that it processed Autounattend.xml, that it's initializing display settings, but then "no display settings specified". Am I doing something wrong?

32
1280
60
1024

Thanks!

– Servant

The final ADK documentation will include all settings for the WinPE pass, check the unattend.chm file.

And the unattend.xml can be dynamically generated by a script in WinPE running before wpeinit.exe is called, so yes…

Naveed

Hi,
Could someone refer me to a link that states all possible UNATTEND settings for Winpe? Also the default place should be System32 folder or Root?

Sure, as long as the unattend.xml file is updated before wpeinit.exe is run… You can have a script that updates the unattend.xml file dynamically when WinPE boots.

iceee

Hi Johan, is it possible to make the screen resolution dynamic?